UEA Climate Scientist: “possible that…I.P.C.C. has run its course”

This is a surprise. Professor Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia suggests that the “I.P.C.C. has run its course”. I agree with him. We really need to remove a wholly political organization, the United Nations, from science.

[Upcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen] “is about raw politics, not about the politics of science. […] It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science. It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose? The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production – just at a time when a globalizing and wired cosmopolitan culture is demanding of science something much more open and inclusive.

Full Hulme Statement:

The key lesson to be learned is that not only must scientific knowledge about climate change be publicly owned — the I.P.C.C. does a fairly good job of this according to its own terms — but the very practices of scientific enquiry must also be publicly owned, in the sense of being open and trusted. From outside, and even to the neutral, the attitudes revealed in the emails do not look good. To those with bigger axes to grind it is just what they wanted to find.

This will blow its course soon in the conventional media without making too much difference to Copenhagen — after all, COP15 is about raw politics, not about the politics of science. But in the Internet worlds of deliberation and in the ‘mood’ of public debate about the trustworthiness of climate science, the reverberations of this episode will live on long beyond COP15. Climate scientists will have to work harder to earn the warranted trust of the public – and maybe that is no bad thing.

But this episode might signify something more in the unfolding story of climate change. This event might signal a crack that allows for processes of re-structuring scientific knowledge about climate change. It is possible that some areas of climate science has become sclerotic. It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science.

It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose? The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production – just at a time when a globalizing and wired cosmopolitan culture is demanding of science something much more open and inclusive.

h/t to Marc Morano

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“Hulme tells us that if the scientists are going to be listened to in the future, they must “recognize the social limits of their truth seeking” – WOW. ;-) They must thus “trade truth for influence” – WOW. He also says that the “climate change is too important to be left to scientists” – WOW – “least of all the normal ones” – WOW. Hulme promotes the idea that the climate science should become a “post-normal science” – WOW. He says that the “danger” of the “normal science” is that it assumes that the truth is found before the policies are created – WOW.

In the post-normal science that he recommends, science is ready to change “as it rubs against society” – WOW – and the disputes should focus on sociological issues such as funding, personal evaluations, and the format of presentations – WOW. In order to make progress with the climate change, we must “take science off center stage” – WOW. Hulme correctly says that an honest scientist can’t answer questions like “what level of CO2 is too much” because the answer depends on a value judgment which is not a part of science but the only reason why he says so is that he wants to urge scientists to become “post-normal scientists” who claim to be able to answer such questions – WOW.

If I summarize it, he wants to destroy the difference between science and politics completely. I just find it rather breathtaking. This is not a generic crank from Real Climate or Not Even Wrong. This is officially a director of an institute that pretends to be a scientific institute whom we have praised for certain things.”

The statement is reasonable, but rather bland. On the other hand, could you imagine an AGW insider making such a statement to the public even 2 weeks ago? Daylight is a wonderful disinfectant, isn’t it? :-)

Sour grapes by Hulme.
He knows the jig is up, and now he is looking for the exit signs.
Hulme and his ‘post normal science needs to be tossed out hard onto the ash heap.
He and his pals rigged the IPCC into a puppet echo chamber for their apocalyptic clap trap. They made millions and millions of grant dollars fabricating and selling junk data. They were suppressing counter data. And now he whines about the IPCC running its course and how it is all about raw politics. He just knows the money train is not coming to his station again for awhile.
This sleazy sun of a gun and his pals alomost succeededin conning the world out of trillions.
Of course Revkin has yet to interview one hig profile skpetic who was predicting that at its heart AGW was about deception.
It is passing strange taht the media, allegedly wanting its members, readers, or viewers to get the whole story has yet to do any specials analyzing the letters and data and code, or allowing skeptics who suspected they would be as they prove to be, speak freely.
What low end cowards these AGW promoters are, when push comes to shove.

I think this is very shocking. I have looked a bit at his book he wrote “Why we diagree on global warming”. That is a pro post-normal science book. He should be gratefull about the connection between science-politics. What he is saying here in my book is: We have done our job, its up to the politics now. IPCC has done its job :S

He has probably experienced the scientific climate at CRU for a long time, had misgivings with it, but felt uneasy about rocking the boat until now. His good name is on the line along with the reputation of the entire university. Without decisive action from the UEA it is badly tarnished.

Suggesting the demise of the IPCC comes as a bit of a surprise, but is entirely logical.

“This will blow its course soon in the conventional media without making too much difference to Copenhagen — after all, COP15 is about raw politics…”

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” –Winston Churchill

Make no mistake; we are at war this very minute. If your elected representative won’t listen to you, print up 100 flyers with the facts about Climategate and pass them out door-to-door, if you have to. Yes, the will never print the truth. Never.

I have a friend, George P. (www.freebuck.com) who has a lecture on “Dogma” which he gives to civic groups, critical thinking clubs, etc.

In it he warns of the dangers of “tribalism” and “tribal mentality”, which he has found in all sorts of groups, from the churches, to government bodies, to national entities. (For example both Japan and Germany’s WWII escapades in WWII can be attributed to a “tribal” attitude amoung the populations.)

When he first went over the Emails this weekend he wrote me that “Extremely good example of ‘tribalism’…”

I think that Mike Hulme is NOT ALONE in this assesment.

One of the videos of a programmer commenting on WUWT suggests that the PAPERS WRITTEN USING THE WORTHLESS CODES should be withdrawn.

Propose that and wait for the CRU to come out with WARPAINT and bones through their noses. (Bunga, bunga, bunga…)

How sad that we’ve had to wait this long for some to start being honest.

The political machine in the US will continue to use AGW as a mechanism to transfer wealth within the US and from the US to other countries. This edifice has taken 20 years to build. It will not be dismantled anytime soon. The opportunities for vote buying and graft are just too huge.

Maybe it sounds completely idiotic, but I am tasting the word “free”. I felt more free after the emails, and now I feel even more, yes, free. Professor Hulme has opened a large window to let some air into the room, and it feels great, and I am really greatful for his truly bold act. It’s a wonderful night!

“The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus.”

Not-so-good news from down under. This [snip] line is from an editorial in The Australian:
“whatever the science ultimately shows, Australians of all political persuasions believe humanity is responsible for global warming and the government has to act to reduce its impact.”

We don’t care if the science says it’s drivel, we must act because people BELIEVE it’s not. How can any responsible person possibly write that?

If it wasn’t clear 168 hours ago, it is clear now that these leaked data cannot be dismissed or made to go away. Some are trying to “salvage” or regain whatever integrity they may have had. Others are indeed circling the wagons and pointing guns outward.

I’ll give some credit to anyone who repents. Anyone who has done wrong and decides …

I cannot undo what I have done. I can only do the right thing now. And now is the time.

“The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science.”

Religious zealots of secular humanism, post modernism’s religion of the political elite will describe premeditated lying and falsification of scientific data for financial gain and power by linking it to culture that might by “primitive and tribal”. The cave man knew what a lie was and understood the consequences of lying to his neighbor. What made the cave man primitive was his failure to give “due process of law” when he executed his neighbor for a lie that jeopardized his family and wealth. A civilized culture would simply provide due process and hang the bastard, if guilty as charged.

I think that’s an interesting article to come at this time
– it is interesting for someone at the heart of the AGW debate to suggest the abolition of the IPCC
– but of course, he may be right – Climate Change may now be sufficiently part of the political agenda, and sufficiently fixed in the public’s mind, that it will run it’s course.
– I think it is a little premature to say that the IPCC’s work is done.

I also think he is right that the AGM scientific community need to get better at communicating their message, and being less arrogant, and less proscriptive.

Eric: You wrote, “Climate analysts is a better term than climate scientists. The field of ‘climate analysis’ is a more accurate term than ‘climate science’.”

The assumption there is that the climate researchers are capable of analysing data independent of their assumed relationship between anthropogenic greenhouse gases and global temperatures. I, as you may be aware, find little evidence of this, especially when they assume there is a linear relationship between ENSO and global temperatures. My latest post discusses the two instances when the emails from Jones referred to one of my guest posts here at WUWT:http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/im-honored-i-think.html

It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose?

Well, to set up a bran’ new credit default swap and derivatives carbon trading infrastructure, that’s what! I been savin’ an savin’ all this time, so’s we could be livin off the fat-a-the lan’, and now your not gonna lemme!

Will there be ever a change??
THE INDEPENDENT on 23 Sept. 1989 reported about a speech by James Lovelock „Environment expert launches attack on ‚corrupt scientists’“
>>He said that everyone, including the Greens, needed science, but not the kind of science we had now. Science has grown fat, lazy and corrupt, “and like an obese atherosclerotic, man imagines that more rich food will cure his conditions” >>
19 years IPCC has made it worst!!!

The IPCC was of poor construct to begin with. It is a political organization, nothing more. Attempting to mix politics with science can only, as illustrated by the reign of the IPCC, corrupt the science.

I agree with the comments about the current public perception of science. Many aspects of the AGW issue has damaged it all along. The ‘proof’ the emails provided of what many of us have been saying for years have even further tarnished science (at least in regards to climate). That damage has been wrought by a few unethical scientists. Ironically, they were the same ones oft hailed as the ‘leaders’ of climate science. They should be ashamed, they should publicly apologize, they should be banned from receipt of further funding.

I believe it was just a cycle. We warm and cool within many cycles caused by the sun and ocean currents.
——-
What’s most important about all those cycles (climate change, meteor smashing the earth, earthquakes, … whatever) is for the human race to develop technologies to adapt. Advanced technologies development are our only survival tools, our Salvation. We are so nothing in the universe that one space rock could obliterate us… unless we have the tools to protect us and survive it. Forcing humanity to give up technologies is an assured death sentence on humanity.

“Climate analysts is a better term than climate scientists. The field of “climate analysis” is a more accurate term than “climate science”.”

Well, given the hardcore fanatics see AGW as a religion and that they have in some cases apparently created global warming out of the firmament, I wonder if “climate creationists” wouldn’t be appropriate for those who aren’t prepared to repent and start doing science instead.

Those who think what Hulme is saying is a good thing should perhaps re-read him.
he is saying terrible things.
He thinks that he has carried this so far that science based on actually getting to truth no longer matters.
IOW, if his group of ‘scientists’ had been this successful inselling the idea that, say, people with left hands and gray eyes are the a claer and present danger to the world, and a genocide against them was under review for early implementation, he would not really care if the facts his group came up with our accurate or not. He jsut does not wish to beothered wiht the tedious political details. He is a post normal scientist, afterall.
Hulme is what people who believe in right and wrong call a ‘bad man’.

Lee,
The IPCC has been perfectly designed: It blended wackjob pseudo sicence with a strong politisal skill and a veneer of credibility, to sell the clap trap of AGW to the world. It is as brilliant as any political propaganda machine that has ever existed. That a railroad engineer was the figure head, according to the e-mails, in front of the likes of Hulme, Jones, Mann, Hansen, etc. etc. only shows how clever it has been.
It has been strong enough to withstand direct evidence that its work is compromised by corrupt data. It has been strong enough to be a perfect instrument of post-nromal science – blatantly political, but able to appeal to authority anytime it is critiqued.

This is a powerful statement coming from a respected climate scientist, and I fully agree with it. I am surprised how quickly this request of ending the reign of IPCC can about. As I recall the UN – IPCC gained its political position by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980’s. Her mission statement of the IPCC was to push alternative energy sources, such as nuclear, and halt the burning of fossil fuels due to their CO2 emissions. She did not trust the Middle East governments as a dependable source of petroleum, and within England the coal miners were striking and making coal energy difficult. Therefore, she hung her hat on the IPCC to persuade the world that fossil fuels are bad for the environment due to the CO2 emissions that could lead to Global Warming. Additional money, power and additional politics made the IPCC a very powerful world government. Independent of the IPCC, global temperatures indeed warmed more in the 1990’s since the 1930’s. Al Gore and James Hanson preached the gloom and doom of CO2 emissions and during the 1990’s the computer projections and valid data were better in sync with each other. The MET, NASA and CRU scientists gained power of the press, money and politics as they hand feed their data to guide the IPCC reports. However the last decade or so, as the CO2 levels continued to rise, global temperatures in the atmosphere and oceans cooled as land temperatures remained flat. No computer climate model used by the IPCC predicted this extended global cooling. Valid data and IPCC predictions were in conflict with other. The global warming theory even tried to change the name only of their theory to climate change. Additional research showed that the urban heat island of land temperature showed a larger biased towards warming than was understood before (thanks to Anthony Watts and others). A dozen or so scientists who controlled what was viewed by the IPCC, started to hide the decline of global cooling. Then in Nov. 2009, climate-gate exposed the under the table dealings. These e-mails, climate data and computer code made public for the first time, showed that the basic scientific method was derailed: a) conflicting valid data did not change the theory using the self correction clause, b) peer review was done by people biased against dissenting theories, c) editors who allowed dissenting theories were ostracized and d) the Freedom of Information law was purposely broken by these few eminent scientists who desired no independent verification of the climate data. I will predict that these scientists have yet to see the worst as more is learned and lawsuits are filed. In retrospect, the IPCC was an organization that had it’s conclusion written before the valid data came rolling in. That is not the way science works best, so no wonder it imploded. I wonder if the leaked e-mails came from someone inside the CRU who saw the bad science evolving within this climate science temple. Scientific theory evolves not by opinion, but by valid data. Perhaps a new chapter in climatology has begun with the demise of the IPCC influence.

For those of you who don’t know – he’s the opposition leader in the UK and may well soon be the new Prime Minister (from May 2010).

I’ve sent him a fairly detailed email about 5 days ago on the matter, but today I see he’s carrying on as though it’s gone over his head. At least the leader of the UK Independence party has had the decency to reply to my email.

“The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science.”

Naive & misleading.

Academia is tribal by structural design. Departments mutually assure each other autonomy.

Overextension of the news cycle is music to the ears of parasitic administrators who are latched on to the climate industry.

Controversy & scandal consolidates their power, further ensuring that there will be 5 (or more) administrators milking the public purse at union wages for every 1 person doing credible climate science (during the 1/3 of the time when these academic scientists are not teaching & tending to administrative duties).

My take on the frenzy of the past week:
Plays right into the hands of corrupt, unionized, tribal academic administration.

It is a very patronizing statement. He is attempting to tell everyone else what “the key lesson to be learned” is. It involves some cosmetic changes to make science look a little more publicly owned.

Another patronizing statement is that the CRU leaked email story will run its course in the media without much effect.

He is not very concerned about fast tracking FOI requests, or making full inquiry into peer review processes, or single person editorial boards, or even about legal action against Phil Jones, et al, so that future scientific fraud is not emboldened. He is only talking about appearances and it would be infuriating if it weren’t so pathetic.

Even if the global temps stay stable for another ten years governments, especially the UK’s, cannot give up on warming hype now because they account for 7% of all taxes. That’s too large a chunk to find from other sources in a small time-frame. We’re stuck with it. All we can do is keep shooting.

It is a powerful statement but to what effect?
The political establishment gathering in Copenhagen have set their minds on Global Governance, Cap&Trade, Communism and the elimination of the free world.

The first thing they will do as soon as the contracts are signed is to eliminate the IPCC anyway. Why to maintain a tool when you don’t need it anymore.

Don’t let Gorbatchev win the Cold War twenty years after the Berlin Wall collapsed.

Personally I applaud him, this is a scientist that has now realised that if you dance with the devil, politics, then there is a good chance that you get burned. I just hope that the rest can now step back from the limelight before its too late and hold up their hands in realisation that it all went too far.
Most of us that don’t have that certain flair, intelect and intuition still just dream of being a scientist.
I hope that future generations will not be inhibited by this episode.

Lee there are more than just a few.
I mean I have taken both hands out of my pockets and have one shoe off with the other ready. You are going to have to take your hands out of your pockets too to count them all.

The whole corrupt edifice of a handful of so-called “scientists” peer reviewing each others work, falsifying data, concealing data, destroying data and attempting to ruin anyone not in their magic circle of influence, has to be taken apart piece by piece. What he and his colleagues have done will damage science for ever.

As for the CRU scientists, they are all an abomination. They have been deliberately deceiving the public, and have displayed all the ethics of gangsters operating a protection racket. I couldn’t care less if one of them is contrite now. Everything he says is a self-justifying lie, when what they all should be doing is apologizing to the whole world because their entire careers were forged by conspiring against us.

As for the IPCC – it’s a joke. Look at it. Stuffed full of bureaucrat pen-pushers and self-serving politicians. Must be the most useless organization in the world, and with the most malign influence. How can anyone take anything they say seriously?

THe IPCC never had a course. Right from Rio it was a political fix. Look up the life and times of Maurice Strong.

Meantime a commentator on a (London) Daily Telegraph blog gives an insight into the BBC’s ignorance and bias, and refers to this internal BBC reporthttp://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.pdf
It included this passage ….
Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be unpopular. There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate change is definitely happening, and that it is at least predominantly man-made. But the second part of that consensus still has some intelligent and articulate opponents, even if a small minority.
Jana Bennett, Director of Television, argued at the seminar that ‘as journalists, we have the duty to understand where the weight of the evidence has got to. And that is an incredibly important thing in terms of public understanding – equipping citizens, informing the public as to what’s going to happen or not happen possibly over the next couple of hundred years.’
Roger Mosey, Director of Sport, said that in his former job as head of TV News, he had been lobbied by scientists ‘about what they thought was a disproportionate number of people denying climate change getting on our airwaves and being part of a balanced discussion – because they believe, absolutely sincerely, that climate change is now scientific fact.

The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate.”

They do not say they will deny space to opponents, but the line is clear – they will promote warming on the basis of a private meeting with a cabal of scientists. I wonder who?
The BBC has taken an institutional line and will only pay a formulaic lip service to ‘dissenters’ and, bless, ‘even sceptics’.

Be VERY CAREFUL about Hulme. This is no ‘conversion’!! He long ago decided that climate change wasn’t anything to do with proper science, it is a political idea, so this episode gives him the opportunity to lurch it further into his preferred post-normal science direction, serving his political (socialist) agenda. As he says,”Scientists…must trade truth for influence”, “In the end, politics will always trump science…we need better politics, not better science.”

“It has been labelled “post-normal” science. Climate change seems to fall in this category. Disputes in post-normal science focus…on the process of science – who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy…The IPCC is a classic example of a post-normal scientific activity.

The danger of a “normal” reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow…exchanges often reduce to ones about scientific truth rather than about values, perspectives and political preferences.

…‘self-evidently’ dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth-seeking…scientists – and politicians – must trade truth for influence. What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy.

The function of climate change I suggest, is not as a lower-case environmental phenomenon to be solved…It really is not about stopping climate chaos. Instead, we need to see how we can use the idea of climate change…to rethink how we take forward our political, social, economic and personal projects over the decades to come.”

The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identifies and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us…Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.

…climate change has become an idea that now travels well beyond its origins in the natural sciences…climate change takes on new meanings and serves new purposes…climate change has become “the mother of all issues”, the key narrative within which all environmental politics – from global to local – is now framed…Rather than asking “how do we solve climate change?” we need to turn the question around and ask: “how does the idea of climate change alter the way we arrive at and achieve our personal aspirations…?” “

Will we see a renaissance as scientists begin to “come out” after the leaked e-mails? It would seem that institutions, like any other societies are susceptible to centrifugal forces, “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,” etc.

Dr. Judith Curry used the word “tribalism” in her response to Willis Eschenbach’s story about the freedom of information. And now this by Hulme of East Anglia:

The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display…

I think it might be correct to assume that some of the tribes that have formed in on Climate Change Island were objectionable from the start to many Climate Scientists, and that this may prove an ideal time to vote a few of them off the island.

Do I see someone positioning to be the next head of CRU, or at least to save his shirt?

I would give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s the first I’ve heard recognise this new reality: thanks to the internet, the ivory towers of academia are increasingly looking like intellectual prisons.

PS
the report includes this footnote by BBC journalist Andrew Marr, who ….. “in his introduction to the September seminar, remarked that ‘the first thing that happens to you as a BBC journalist is that you’re taken down into a dank basement to have your trousers pulled down and your organs of opinion removed with a pair of secateurs by the Director-General and popped in a formaldehyde bottle. You’re told you’re allowed them back when you leave.’ ”

This is what is wrong. ‘Opinion’ is OK. What is important is being open minded and valuing recognising the worth of other opinions.

The BBC has taken an institutional stance on global warming (it has been ‘got at’) and the ‘opinion’ of its employees now no longer matters. their ability to recognise patterns of logic no longe matter. They have not had their ‘opinion tackle’ amputated. They have been lobotomised. Zombiefied.

Philosopher Jerome R. Ravetz introduced the concept of ‘post-normal’ science, which is not the good, old-fashioned science that seeks truth. While we are angry that scientists have been cooking the books, our outrage and response is according to ‘normal science’, which Ravetz and Hulme consider ‘obsolete’. Ravetz and this new breed of ’scientists’ are on a different track – one with a lust for political control. Ravetz, drawing on neo-Marxism, showed them the way. He said:

” …the puzzle-solving approach of ‘normal science’ is obsolete. This is a drastic cultural change for science, which many scientists will find difficult to accept. But there is no turning back…For us, quality is a replacement for truth in our methodology. We argue that this is quite enough for doing science, and that truth is a category with symbolic importance, which itself is historically and culturally conditioned.”

Here’s what he says about climate models, and the deception necessary to produce them:

“…climate change models are a form of “seduction”…advocates of the models…recruit possible supporters, and then keep them on board when the inadequacy of the models becomes apparent. This is what is understood as “seduction”; but it should be observed that the process may well be directed even more to the modelers themselves, to maintain their own sense of worth in the face of disillusioning experience…but if they are not predictors, then what on earth are they? The models can be rescued only by being explained as having a metaphorical function, designed to teach us about ourselves and our perspectives under the guise of describing or predicting the future states of the planet…A general recognition of models as metaphors will not come easily. As metaphors, computer models are too subtle…for easy detection. And those who created them may well have been prevented…from being aware of their essential character.”

What was “leaked” or “stolen” was, as a matter of fact, by law, both UK and USA, public information. This includes the emails, as they were not “personal”, but generated as a part of the work process, and the “work” was funded by government grants.

This public information was requested under the Freedom of Information acts, and the requests were either refused or were delayed endlessly. Refusing to provide this public information as required by law is where the real law-breaking came in.

Mike Hulme demonstrates that scientists are indeed political amateurs. Imagine thinking out aloud like that! Seriously,the IPCC process is difficult for many,time consuming and complex,but it was a triumph of co-operation and synthesis.”Yes,there will be an AR5,but for what process?” Does this mean that now the science is mature and the work is now in political sphere, forging agreements via the mechanism of international conferencing? A global economic culture has global-scale problems.

If the the IPCC,an institutional innovation ,has perhaps run its course,what mechanism would replace it? A centralised clearing house for peer-reviewed climate related publication,without the political filtering, leaving national academies of science to work together or not on global-scale science information? Peer-review and post-publication scrutiny work pretty well. Perhaps the process would be improved if journals were subsidised to provide immediate open access,but there is no guarantee that greater public access will result in anything more than the mob behavior seen over the CRU hack. There will need to be extra resources devoted to basic science communication. There is no substitute for genuine competence in the field.

So,can this blog also search its soul? Tribalism…hmmm. Will the skeptic blogosphere examine its own role in creating the defensiveness in some scientists? Has skeptic culture the honesty to be frank about the fears that motivate its tactics? Can skeptic culture resist the temptation to bold keywords and phrases in an attempt to provide interpretive guidance? Has it the intellectual energy to work in good faith to improve science communication?

This guy isn’t a climate scientist per se. He studies science in light of society and politics. He should be writing a history book, not running any active science research institution.

“I am currently interested in the representations of climate change in history, society and the media; the interactions between climate change science and policy; and the construction, application and evaluation of climate change scenarios for impact, adaptation and integrated assessment. ”

Sour grapes by Hulme.
He knows the jig is up, and now he is looking for the exit signs.
Hulme and his ‘post normal science needs to be tossed out hard onto the ash heap.

And

And another thing. I just searched the emails, in almost every mail he is mentioned the topic is politics.

I think this is a story of stab and run. He just stabbed his colleges and now is running to try and dodge the bullet.

… and etc!

People – Hulme has been interested in the nexus between climate science, psychology and politics for quite some time. What he said above is in accord with many previous statements. Most people here would endorse his previous reflections. Indeed, it’s a bit surprising that he hasn’t been touted here before. For example:

“In recent months I have been chastised for some of my pronouncements on climate change. I have spoken out against the use of exaggerated language in the description of climate change risks; I have spoken about the limits and fragility of scientific knowledge; I have suggested that we should focus on nearer-term policy goals to improve human welfare rather than be so pre-occupied with one large longer-term goal of global climate management. As a consequence I have been accused of burying my head ostrich like in the sand; of
undermining the power of science; of lacking passion about ‘solving’ the ‘problem’ of climate change.”

People are weaving Hulme’s latest comments into all sorts of weird confirmation bias narratives to do with ‘sea change’ and climate scientists throwing each other under the bus. So much for ‘skepticism’.

The real revelations are just starting, the personal stories of scientists who were quite deliberately threatened by the reptiles of Climate Gate, and in the light of the stories from those who doubted and were ruthlessly suppressed and threatened, that description includes all of the reptiles!

And Hulme at UEA was just as much part of this as any of them as he no doubt had the knowledge needed to doubt and the authority to blow this whole thing out of the water long ago.

Post modern science? That’s been the problem with AGW from the start – it is the product of post modern science, and the obsession about debating the issues, and the thoroughly post modern approach to making facts fit the theory. Sad to say, the political left have control of the world’s universities and and it is this mindset which created the problem in the first place.

Prof. Hulme is just now coming to the conclusion that just maybe climate science has become to tribal and political in nature?

Either these people are wholly disingenuous or they do not possess the necessary awareness and investigative ability to be research scientists. Climate science became all about politics, money and power decades ago.

It doesn’t have to remain so. Nobody forced scientists to prostitute themselves out for fame and fortune, they have been doing it willingly. All it would take to stop this is for scientists who are truly interested in their profession to stand up and refuse to continue down this road.

The fork in the road has now been presented to them. It will be interesting to see which path they choose. I remain skeptical.

This is a strange times that we live in today. Most of the world leaders are about to gather in Copenhagen next week to agree on a plan to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide with the hope of avoiding further global warming and fight climate change . The total world expenditures will be well into the trillions of dollars through more taxation, higher energy costs and redistribution of wealth.

Yet there has been no unusual global warming for at least a decade and the small amount of warming that there was has now been accounted for by the natural planetary cycle called ENSO or El Nino. All natural cycles are pointing to a near term future of 20-30 years of cooler weather rather than unprecedented warming. The globe has been naturally warming since 1600 and periods of warming and cooling like today have existed many times before.

Recently released e-mails from the CRU climategate show the IPCC scientists saying that, “we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”. Their science has turned out to be flawed. The global temperatures have been declining while the CO2 was rising, completely opposite of what their science said.

So we have our current world that cannot find adequate money to fight world wide unemployment, poverty, disease, provide better health care and shelter for its poor, elderly and disenfranchised, yet it is willing to commit trillions of borrowed dollars to solve a problem that may not even exist as currently defined, supported by questionable science and a climate which at the very least, our best climate scientists claim they do not even understand.

Any prudent steward or national leader would say , this serious climate problem that we were told was imminent and catastrophic, no longer seems valid and the science for which is far from settled or completely understood yet, you climate scientists better go back and study this better. Meanwhile we have other global and regional priorities that need the limited funds much more at this moment. This is what Copenhagen leaders should do but time will tell if there are any real leaders among this group.

It looks like open source is coming to the sciences. The whole climate gate incident happened because of closed source software in the first place. You can’t trust a scientist that uses Microsoft because that is an indication of a way of thinking. Just like with the software, if we want high quality science we need to go open source. http://ojuul.baywords.com/2009/11/27/climate-research-hackees-lay-low/

The BBC has taken an institutional stance on global warming (it has been ‘got at’) and the ‘opinion’ of its employees now no longer matters. their ability to recognise patterns of logic no longe matter. They have not had their ‘opinion tackle’ amputated. They have been lobotomised. Zombiefied.

To be honest, it doesn’t have choice. It’s funded by the tax-payer, which means it’s funded by the government.

Thanks for that bit about post-normal science, your second such comment today. In conjunction with other comments on tribalism, this makes the approved, peer-reviewed approach of climate science appear to be nothing but superstitious primitive mysticism with a shiny, seductive, modern veneer of respectability (and a very thin one at that).

It’s a symbiotic relationship between politician and scientist, better discussed in Ayn Rand’s essay, “For the New Intellectual.” (Title essay from the book of the same name.) Her description is more telling — Attila and the Witch Doctor. While it’s a metaphorical term and might have once been thought of as describing the relationship between king and priest, it’s also frighteningly descriptive of the relationship that has devolved over more than half a century between politicians and scientists.

And if you want a really disquieting image, associate names such as Mann, Hansen, Hulme, et al with witch doctor. The classic scientist is a dying breed.

I think the majority of folk posting above have misunderstood Hulme, just as they misunderstood Monbiot calling for Dr Phil Jones’s resignation.

This pair are not contrite. They do not regret the conspiracy. They are “moving on” to the next stage of the consolidation of the now almost world-wide acceptance of this mad ideology of “climate change”.

They are distinguishing the science from the politics because the science does not matter any more one way or the other. It has been superceded. FAITH has surpassed questionning and objectivity. They are on a mission to save us from ourselves.

VERY dangerous people!

I am surprised so many on this thread think Hulme is “on their side”. That is very far from the truth, I’m afraid.

Climatology is a classificatory discipline akin to botany: Not an empirical science, because by definition there cannot be any experiments. What Warmsters do is formulate preconceived hypotheses that accord with their atavistic, regressive Statist ideology, then justify their propaganda by fabricating data, corrupting methodology, posing spurious assumptions, all the while colluding to suppress dissent by any and all means. Characterizing this as “tribalism” posits such behavior as an inevitable facet of fallible human nature. But no: Since 1988, a mutual-admiration society of barely thirty tenured academic radicals has consciously, knowingly conspired to undermine public-interest research projects at the root, politicizing every aspect of their franchise with a view to personal aggrandizement and enrichment at credulous society’s expense.

When practitioners of any objective, rational endeavor withhold base data, conceal analytical methods, hold themselves immune to ethical and even legal constraints by restricting their sacred “peer review” to co-conspirators, no-one need accept any of their hypotheses whatever because disinterested third-party replication is impossible. Science is not thereby impugned but reinforced: Properly conducted in face of obstacles worthy of Galileo, honest inquiry well-meant becomes heroic.

For whatever reason, since the mid-1960s a socio-cultural gangrene has festered in body politics worldwide. Cultism of the Al Gore variety –feckless, nasty, prima facie idiotic to the nth degree– has nonetheless infected peculating elites at every level, fostering a global kakistocracy of nihilistic sociopaths bent on blasting post-Enlightenment industrial civilization at the root. Courts no more concern themselves with decent principles aka the Rule of Law than executive or legislative bodies do with matters marginal to insiders’ self-aggrandizement.

Now facing demographic demolition, beset by a looming Maunder Minimum presaging an overdue end to our median 12,250-year Holocene Interglacial Epoch, free-market peace-and-prosperity burgeoning since the 1950s is falling victim to a wrecking crew of trans-generational saboteurs. Odds seem 70:30 that, by default, they will succeed in tipping global populations into a viciously repressive, neo-feudal New Medieval Age. If so, benighted national polities will have only themselves to blame.

It’s an off-topic blog, so I apologize if that’s not considered an OK linking practice hear…but I think the comments of the keynote speaker I reference are pretty appalling and representative of what these elitists really think.

“But over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country – the phenomenon of “catastrophic” climate change.

It seems that mere “climate change” was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be “catastrophic” to be worthy of attention.

The increasing use of this pejorative term – and its bedfellow qualifiers “chaotic”, “irreversible”, “rapid” – has altered the public discourse around climate change.

This discourse is now characterised by phrases such as “climate change is worse than we thought”, that we are approaching “irreversible tipping in the Earth’s climate”, and that we are “at the point of no return”.

It seems that we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the (catastrophe) sceptics
I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.

It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the (catastrophe) sceptics. How the wheel turns.”

What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy; it is whether we have sufficient foresight, supported by wisdom, to allow our perspective about the future, and our responsibility for it, to be altered. All of us alive today have a stake in the future, and so we should all play a role in generating sufficient, inclusive and imposing knowledge about the future. Climate change is too important to be left to scientists – least of all the normal ones.

From outside, and even to the neutral, the attitudes revealed in the emails do not look good.

But what inquiring minds want to know, Dr. Hulme, is what did it look like from the inside? You were there while the data was being jiggered, while phony hockey sticks were being waved, while skeptical scientists were being undermined, while the peer review process was being gamed.

What was it like to work every day with frauds, cheats, liars, and hoaxers? What was it like to be a member of the primitive tribe?

It would be an interesting sociology report and right up your alley as a PoMo neo-sociologist (as well as a former scientist). What were the primitive behaviors you witnessed over at CRU? Domination battles? Chest thumping? Grooming? Mating rituals? Can you deconstruct the CRU oeuvre for us?

I fear that it may be too late, and that this economy killing Cap and Trade will pass in some sort or another thanks to our underinformed and overly socialist President and Congress. The urgency is too great for them when you really think about it. If a few more years go by and the cooling trend continues, there will be less confidence in their next scam. But if they pass it now, while they have the votes, then they can claim that “A-Ha, see, our work really has cooled the globe”. Should these commitments happen not to pass in Copenhagen, and cooling trend continues, the next scam will be the acidification of the oceans, caused by excess human CO2! Brilliant! Now we can continue the same extortionary scheme of CO2 trading, and the same players of Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and the Chicago Climate Exchange can still make money off the same scam, using the same gullible public and governments and the same useful idiots (the mainstream media) to continue the scam!

And, hmmm, perhaps this guy *is* the leak. Certainly fits the bill with his commentary about the politicization of science within the IPCC. Perhaps he became fed up with the B.S. spewing from Phil Jones lips and and had a come-to-Jesus moment about what his deceptive work was about to do around the world.

The BBC has taken an institutional stance on global warming (it has been ‘got at’) …

And its massive pension fund is invested where exactly? Who are its main subcontractors, management consultants, etc.? What “debt” remains from the Dr Kelly and Greg Dyke fiasco? How many in its employ are paid up members and big contributors to the New Labour project, Greenpeace, WWF, etc.? What scams are behind the scam? This pickled walnut is dark and has many ugly wrinkles I’m afraid, it’s been marinating since well before 1997.

Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognizes the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists – and politicians – must trade (normal) truth for influence.

And then we wonder why they all see themselves as advocates. There appears to be an emerging post-modern ethos whereby science, as Galileo, understood it, is obsolete, and socio-political orthodoxy, as Cardinal Bellarmine understood it, is now “in” again.

I’m being enormously entertained watching the “emergency exits” at the Grand Global Warming Theater. I see little rat noses tentatively poking out all over the place. Meanwhile, Michael Mann takes to the stage with his magic act once again in a desperate effort to stem the panic.

It appears that many readers have failed to grasp that Professor Mike Hulme, School of Environmental Sciences, and Director Tyndall Centre University of East Anglia, IS NOT interested in doing any favors for the community of climate skeptics. On the contrary, his latest statements are wholly consistent with moving forward the alarmist climate change agenda regardless of any opposition from skeptics of climate change or revelations of climate alarmist misconduct or fraudulent data. Talk of dismantling of the IPCC only foreshadows the transformation of the organization into other front organizations better organized to conceal activities and move forward with implementations of the alarmist climate change strategies while brushing aside classic Enlightenment scientific methods, organizations, and personalities. Hulme denies the scientific method used in “normal science” in favor of applying “post-modern science” and “social construction” in place of Truth seeking. To grasp the enormity of his interpretations of the very meaning of what is science and what is not science, see his review of Unstoppable Global Warming – every 1,500 years by S Fred Singer and Dennis T Avery in the 24 January 2007 Post-Normal Times, Putting Science into Context:

“One of the central reasons we disagree about climate change is because we have different conceptions of what science is and with what authority it speaks – in other words, how scientific ‘knowledge’ interacts with those other realms of understanding brought to us by politics, ethics and spirituality.”

“The unfortunate thing is that many people still hold onto a ‘normal’ faith in science such that it can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow. Fred Singer has this view of science; so does Mark Lynas. That is why they reduce their exchange to one about scientific truth rather than about values, perspectives and political preferences.”

“Climate change is too important to be left to scientists, least of all the normal ones.”

Hulme is a key figure in the alarmist climate change strategies, and his recent statements must be read and understood in light of his declared beliefs that “normal science” is to be shunned and discarded in favor of “post-modern science” in all scientific inquiries and deliberations concerning anthropogenic global warming (AGW). See and judge for yourself what he has to say about “normal science”, truth seeking, and the role of the scientific method in determining policies regarding so-called Climate Change ( aka AGW).

Don’t be fooled. Judy Curry was over on Climate Audit a couple of days ago trying out this “tribalism” meme as a cover for the correct term, which is conspiracy. Now Hulme pops up with the same word. What a coincidence!

We don’t know yet if the AGW conspirators made it to too-big-to-fail status before they got caught on the Internet with their pants down around their ankles. Maybe. They sure entrained a lot of politicians and press. But you never know. Nixon took 49 states in 1972 AFTER the Watergate break-in. Yet two years later he resigned in disgrace and all his pals–some of the highest officials in the government–went to jail. The Climategate plotters ought to think long and hard about that.

This may be very important but I have no way to assess the importance.

Vincent Gray on Climategate: ‘There Was Proof of Fraud All Along’ (PJM Exclusive)
IPCC expert reviewer Gray — whose 1,898 comments critical of the 2007 report were ignored — recently found that proof of the fraud was public for years.

….Yeah well. After 79 billion dollars wasted on “climate science” and the UEA’s own 25 million dollar slice of the action fleeced from the long suffering British taxpayer… ” Time we moved on”, they say.

… Er, there’s a pound of flesh to be collected first…. I think the British taxpayer might want a wee look at how that data base was constructed.

Here’s his CV (to August 2007). A “random selection” of interesting stuff includes …

Media Work:

I devised and authored a monthly climate column for The Guardian newspaper (1988-2001) and am a regular book reviewer for the Times Higher Educational Supplement (2000 onwards). I have over 70 radio and TV appearances including CNN, BBC1 ‘Ten O’Clock News’, Radio 4 ‘Today’, ‘Material World’ and ‘Costing the Earth’, ‘The Investigation’, BBC World Service. I have written commentaries and opinion pieces for many popular outlets, such The Guardian, BBC news on-line, THES, Science and Public Affairs and New Scientist.

Wow the jig is up! The alice in wonderland effect is gone and i didn’t even get to get on board for the clunkers for cash! im bummed! Oh wait, the appliance for cash will get me some change. im ok now, whewwwww

I have long wondered why these ‘climate scientists’ prefer that appellation to the traditional ‘climatologist’. Is it because they are at bottom political ideologues and only secondarily scientists?

Geologist, biologists, physicists, et al. are generally content with their traditional labels. Yes, I suppose Prof. Lindzen is an ‘atmospheric scientist’, but that may be only because his field is so new. Was climatology reborn with “An Inconvenient Truth”?

Look at it this way, next time the republicans get caught being bad boys, we can just chalk it up to ‘tribalism’, the media will give them a pass, and everything will be ok, won’t it? Didn’t think so..

“The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production – just at a time when a globalizing and wired cosmopolitan culture is demanding of science something much more open and inclusive.”

Recent Climategate revelations are a salient reminder that Truth and Politics have never been good friends. The application of a critical mind in the pursuit of Truth is like a laser beam that cuts through the rigid bonds of habitual ‘wisdom’. It is corrosive, as Socrates found out to his cost when charged with, and ultimately killed for, ‘corrupting’ the minds of young Athenians. Politics, on the other hand, seeks to build concerted action by making appeal to the same habitual wisdom that Truth seeks to weaken. By venturing into the realm of politics, any pretence that CRU has that it is an institution dedicated to the pursuit of Truth must ultimately yield to the paradigm of Politics. If CRU’s scientific integrity is to be restored, it must first divorce itself from political ambition. Post-normal science is a chimera.

“The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production.”

PERHAPS? Come on Mike! If you can find evidence that humans are the main cause of most of the global warming over the last 50 years to the 90% confidence level, surely you can make a more definitive statement about the IPCC. There is no ‘perhaps’ about it. The entire purpose of the IPCC is to be authoritarian and exclusive about climate change ‘knowledge’.

AGW elitist have a strange affliction that makes them very certain about the unknown and totally foggy about the blatantly obvious.

Hulme, a Post-Normal Scientist, is speaking in code. Under the faux-radical calling for the dismantling of the IPCC, CRU, & co, there is the powerful message that, to quote Tom Wolfe quoting the ‘user’-community:

“The fix is in ”

– to the political sphere, so no need for those useful idiots like CRU /IPPC right now, they have done their job and are disposable; sacrificial, even.

Well, Hulme is a very mixed bag. I am afraid that this current attitude is just about opportunism and populism because he feels that most people really don’t like what was found.

In the past, he has criticized “climate porn” but he has also opposed the idea that science should be left to scientists because “it’s too important”. See the quote above (search for Motl in this thread).

“Will the skeptic blogosphere examine its own role in creating the defensiveness in some scientists?”

You’ve gotthe wrong end of the stick. The scientists hide the data, and then complain that they’re being attacked and pestered. That’s the way a bully behaves–he claims that someone is looking at him cross-eyed and he’s being disrespected

Similarly, they want to hid the data and are looking for an excuse to be uncooperative, so naturally they claim that if they accede to a request for data, the requests will be never-ending. But that’s because their initial data release was inadequate.

“Can skeptic culture resist the temptation to bold keywords and phrases in an attempt to provide interpretive guidance?”

I agree with your general point that our side needs to cut down on its more extreme statements, and exclude political comments, or accusations that “they’re in it for the money.” Most evildoers aren’t in it for the money–motiveless malignancy explains most of their actions. (I think CA attempts to do a good job in filtering out “attributions of motive–it should be given credit for that). But I don’t think that bolding is a bad practice. It’s generally done throughout the internet in order to draw the eye of a skimmer to the key passages.

==============

ROM (16:05:45) :

“The real revelations are just starting, the personal stories of scientists who were quite deliberately threatened by the reptiles of Climate Gate, …”

Let’s have a congressional hearing where all the aggrieved can testify and confront their persecutors.

===============

Varco (16:57:22) :

Off topic (again) but interesting explanation of the way in which public opinion has been manipulated by Climate Change evangelists….

Vincent Gray on Climategate: ‘There Was Proof of Fraud All Along’ (PJM Exclusive)
IPCC expert reviewer Gray — whose 1,898 comments critical of the 2007 report were ignored — recently found that proof of the fraud was public for years.

Here is the concluding passage from his article, which discredits the “peer reviewed, peer reviewed” parroting of the warmists:

what about Jones and Karl?

In 1999, I had a stroke of luck. I asked one of the IPCC officials for the data from which one of their maps was compiled, and I received it. I wrote a paper analyzing the results and submitted it to Geophysical Research Letters. They just sat on it. I instead published it on John Daly’s website. Today, it is still the only paper recognized by Google on “Regional Temperature Change.”

I now know my paper was not critical enough, since we have proof that the basic data and its processing is far more dubious than I had envisaged.

I tried to update my paper and resubmit it. Nothing doing. Since the small group — revealed within the CRU emails — control most of the peer reviewers, very few peer reviewed papers which criticize that group are allowed to appear in the most prominent published literature which dominates the academic establishment.

I have only been able to find a place to release my criticisms on the internet, now the only realm where unfettered scientific discussion is possible.

If Mike Hulme could conclusively prove from first principles that a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels in the atmosphere results in a 2C – 4C rise in earths temperature, would he need to resort to ‘post normal’ science?

Fundamentally, Mike’s problem is that he can’t prove it. He is left with a hunch, a theory, an idea. Thus, his ‘post normal’ science construct is simply a vehicle to legitimise his approach in promoting his theory in order for it to gain traction. No matter that he swaps truth for influence as he an unwavering belief that his theory is correct.

Unfortunately as soon as you drop the pursuit of truth what are you left with? The very thing that Mike now criticises and of which he was a part of.

Philosopher Jerome R. Ravetz introduced the concept of ‘post-normal’ science, which is not the good, old-fashioned science that seeks truth. While we are angry that scientists have been cooking the books, our outrage and response is according to ‘normal science’, which Ravetz and Hulme consider ‘obsolete’. Ravetz and this new breed of ’scientists’ are on a different track – one with a lust for political control. Ravetz, drawing on neo-Marxism, showed them the way.

Ravetz is a philosopher of science, who sat on bio-science ethics committees back in the 70’s/80’s. I’m not sure how much he was an advocate of post-normal science rather than a social commentator on his identification of it in action. He probably saw it as a necessity in the heat of decision making of the ethics committees he was a part of, and maybe his personal view of climate change would have led him to believe it was a legitimate approach to climate change policy too – I don’t know. My impression of him in the seminars he gave in which I took part was that he was a subtle and wide ranging thinker, and a believer in “non-scientists” having a legitimate voice in decisions about the application of scientific knowledge.

I don’t think he can be painted with a single color, or ‘blamed’ for letting some kind of ‘postmodern’ genie out of a lab bottle.

In it Mike says a couple of interesting things about Fred Singer and Denis Avery’s book “Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1500 years. At that time he definitely still believed in AGW, and painted Singer and Avery as the ‘post-normal’ scientists. Mike was then saying that climate change was happening, and that the ‘normal science’ of the last hundred years proved it.

His views seem to be shifting to point the finger at the IPCC as promoting the ‘post-normal’ science now. Or perhaps he feels that both skeptics and the IPCC have left ‘normal’ science behind.

Personally, I think it’s more of a ‘wheat from chaff’ issue on both sides of the debate.

In the 2007 article, Mike Hulme said:
“Philosophers and practitioners of science have identified this particular mode of scientific activity as one that occurs where the stakes are high, uncertainties large and decisions urgent,”

The identical phrase occurs in the wiki page on ‘post-normal’ science:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science
Post-Normal Science is a concept developed by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, attempting to characterise a methodology of inquiry that is appropriate for cases where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent”. It is primarily seen in the context of the debate over global warming and other similar, long-term issues where we possess less information than we would like.

Clearly, the phrase is lifted from Jerry Ravetz, and maybe Mike Hulme wrote the wiki page? (note the ‘s’ in ‘characterise’). The discussion page and history page are interesting too.

I think we should remember the context in which Ravetz formulated the phrase and some of his ideas. The Ethics around bio-science, gene therapy, embryo research etc, were pressing problems at the time for which pragmatic consensus decisions had to be made in a climate of scientific disagreement. Maybe in the end, Ravetz can be given credit for the fact that he recognised that the societal dimension of science practice and application was an important element to be taken note of.

Unfortunately, the public’s perception of issues is so molded by the media, which has itself fallen into the hands of individuals with a political agenda, that the checks and balances to knowledge production and policy direction are not as they were when Ravetz formulated his thesis.

The glimmer of light is that the media seem to be getting their teeth into ClimateGate, and for totally self interested reasons, may now champion Joe Public in order to win back lost credibility and increase sales.

“we embarked on a project that combined practical application with a fundamental analysis of mathematics. This culminated in our joint book “Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy”. There we developed a notational scheme which encompasses the different sorts of uncertainties, social determinations and implicit value-loadings in quantitative expressions. Of course, a statement like the above might seem outlandish to many readers, who have never had occasion to question the faith that numbers are not merely necessary for scientific truth, but also sufficient. Silvio and I share the conviction that so long as people are deluded about the information conveyed in numbers, there can never be an effective management of the the scientific and practical problems where uncertainty and value-loading are significant.”

“Wherever we turn, be it in global climate change, new-variant CJD, weakening of male sperm in many species, or the rising incidence of asthma, we find serious, perhaps very threatening problems, for which science provides no easy answers. The situation might be summed up in two epigrams. One, from Robert Sinsheimer, is that formerly we asked what science is doing for us, while now we ask what science is doing to us. The other, from myself and Silvio, is that formerly science was considered as having ‘hard facts’ in contrast to the soft, subjective humanities, while now we confront hard policy issues for which the scientific inputs are frequently irremediably soft.”

“non-scientists are given confidence to join in the debate on matters which until recently had been the exclusive domain of accredited experts. The basis we chose for Post-Normal Science is in methodology. We argue that the quality-assurance of scientific inputs into policy processes requires an ‘extended peer community’, including all the stakeholders in an issue. This new peer community can also deploy ‘extended facts’, including local and personal experience, as well as investigative journalism and leaked sources.”

lets put here some of his emails:-” About EU politics, Balabanis is the guy for ESCOBA, but that doesn’t
mean he is necessarily the one for us.” – 848695896.txt-“With this background I do not want SCENGEN (and especially the old DOSversion) ‘leaking’ out into the climate training community at this stage. […]Mean temperature in C.England during 1996 was 0.3degC below the 1961-90 average.“ – 853426848.txt-“I like the curve as does Mike Mann, but its not for any scientific reason.Any jury is still out on whether this is right, but I’m glad someone has tried the approach. It is a quantification of what people have assumed, but there likely isn’t enough detail in the paper to show how it was done.” -510

actually i got tired of reading their emails… ;] but what strikes me is that only a handfull of people seem to control the whole thing, and even so, they agree on sighning all kinds of papers just so it looks like they all agree on it.

I’m sure that Pat Michaels does not have the primary source data used in
his Ph.D. thesis. Perhaps one of us should request the datasets used in
Michaels’ Ph.D. work, and then ask the University of Wisconsin to
withdraw Michaels’ Ph.D. if he fails to produce every dataset and
computer program used in the course of his thesis research.

I would be very concerned if the material comes out under WWF auspices
>in a way that can be interpreted as saying that “even a
>greenie group like WWF” thinks large areas of the world will have
>negligible climate change. But that is where your 95% confidence limit
>leads.

Dear Mike, […]
In my case, I bypassed the “IPCC process” by obtaining permission, in
writing, from the 4 groups who produced the marker scenarios. I did not
acknowledge the CIESIN web site. In your case, apparently, you did. The
problem here is that this site stated very clearly that the data were “not
for citation or quotation”. Did you take notice of this? […]
I hope you can see that there is an important
difference between what you did and what I did. At face value, it would
appear that you have ignored the clearly-stated message that the CIESIN
site data were “not for citation or quotation”. – 941483736.txt

ps fyi I counted the average spacing between the warm and cold
>oscillations in the iron oscillations illustrated by Broecker. Regardless
>of whether warm or cold are used, the mean spacing is indeed 1.5 k,
>although the s.d. is 0.4k HOWEVER, the mean spacing between the four main
>warm phases illustrated by Broecker on the same figure is, believe it or
>not, 2.15! much closer to the solar peak. This calls to mind the
>interesting (and clever) Wigley and Raper paper in Proc. Roy. Soc. (1990)
>indicating that, given the uncertainties in chronology, solar forcing plays
>a role i n Holocenn climate change. It therefore seems that the conveyor
>is indeed oscillating but the time scale of the larger scale CLIMATE shifts
>may be more regulated by solar, with volcanism adding some stochastic
>contribution. Something like this is worth adding to the proposed Eos
>piece. – 983552403.txt

I have taught a basic research course to graduate students at a small college in the western US. Science is about the search for objective truth, nothing more, nothing LESS.

In my opinion, there is a special place in Hell for people who believe in anything called “Post-Normal Science.” Post-Normal Science leads to “Post Hoc” fallacies and to superstition. Post-Normal Science elevates theory to the level of established fact and introduces logical errors like the supposition that correlation and causation are the same.

These people are not scientists; they are used car salesmen. At the very least, they should be promptly removed from their University posts in disgrace. If East Anglia doesn’t do it, then the university should follow them onto the trash heap.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with Mike Hume you have to respect for him two things:
1. Unlike other climate scientists in the tribe he is willing and able to step back and try to understand the unique interaction of science, politics and culture.
2. He has done this with some consistency for many years both in public statements and in his book “Why we disagree about climate change”.

I have taught a basic research course to graduate students at a small college in the western US. Science is about the search for objective truth, nothing more, nothing LESS.

In my opinion, there is a special place in Hell for people who believe in anything called “Post-Normal Science.” Post-Normal Science leads to “Post Hoc” fallacies and to superstition.

I think there is a major misunderstanding of what Jerry Ravetz means by post normal science here and the context in which it occurs, to some extent compounded by Mike Hulme, due to his conflation of the theory of PNS and the position statements of someone who has a stance on the issues.

I assume Jay would agree that Jones, Mann et al believe that they were doing ‘objective science’ just as those who disagree with them do as well. The point is, they can’t both be right if there is only one truth. However, in climate science, there is no certainty about what is actually going on, the objective truth isn’t accessible, so both sides extend their position with qualitative judgments, ad hoc hypotheses, and politicised statements. Both sides are engaging in ‘post normal science’. The judgment of which is the better or more correct position, is a qualitative on which rests on issues such as integrity, belief, relative merit of ideas and data quality and misrepresentation etc. These factors are to a greater or lesser extent outside the remit of ‘objective truth’.

Expect more from Ravetz on this soon, I have learned he has something on ClimateGate in the pipeline.

Fundamentally, Mike’s problem is the red mist in his head. Unfortunately his CV does not describe his formative years or give many clues about the indoctrination he may have suffered over the years or where. However, he looks distinctly like a case of the malleable acquiring the shackles of deft reinforcement by the unscrupulous to me, a sad waste of intellect.

Jay (05:24:37) :

At the very least, they should be promptly removed from their University posts in disgrace. If East Anglia doesn’t do it, then the university should follow them onto the trash heap.

This is simply nonsense. It’s shameful.

Unfortunately there’s much more that’s shameful in UK universities, particularly in history and political sciences. All of it IMHO is a product of fascist like infiltration and subversion that has been going on for well over a decade, much of it stage managed from beyond our borders. It is not only our schools that lie in ruin having produced a generation of useless water melons, the stench of third way elitist corruption now pervades every institution in the UK and will be difficult to expunge.

If you wish to understand how this has arisen, look at the early political affiliations of members of our current government and beyond that to the centres of their further education. What you see today is a facade.

However, in climate science, there is no certainty about what is actually going on, the objective truth isn’t accessible, so both sides extend their position with qualitative judgments, ad hoc hypotheses, and politicised statements.

Utter garbage. Given that statement, please stop using the term “climate science” and substitute “climate politics” from now on. Not only does that boil down to simply politics, it alludes to the very essence of corrosive third way politics – rule by populist concensus arrived at by subversion and indoctrination. And that, my friend, is pure evil. Read your history books.

You are either a non-scientist or have been indoctrinated. If you keep that up, in ten years time you’ll be extolling the virtues of eugenics, mass population culling, etc. arrived at by the same methodology. And others will have used you as a useful idiot to further their nefarious ends, themselves driven by the only real evil on the planet – ego.

I respectively suggest you pause a while and examine your inner conscience then consider what you mean by the truth, objective or otherwise. And please don’t come back with similar garbage about “the precautionary principle”. That is simply a canard of the third way.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with Mike Hume you have to respect for him two things:
1. Unlike other climate scientists in the tribe he is willing and able to step back and try to understand the unique interaction of science, politics and culture.
2. He has done this with some consistency for many years both in public statements and in his book “Why we disagree about climate change”.

It appears you are unacquainted with Marxist-Leninist political, propaganda, and indoctrination practices. Hulme’s outreach you are praising is classic Marxist disinformation attempting to manipulate public opinion in support of establishing control over scientific endeavors and thought by a dictatorship of the proletariat falsely masquerading as a beauracracy of a social democracy safeguarding the peoples’ right to social justice and ecological harmony with the planet and its environment. A key to recognizing such ploys is to note the ever abundant oxymorons employed by the practitioners.

For example, you have “democrats” who oppose democratic sharing of public information through a Freedom of Information Act. You have “democrats” who refuse to permit elected representatives of the citizens to read and debate a legislative bill before compelling them to vote for the legislation. Likewise, they refuse to share scientific data and methodology with opponents citing their superior knowledge and duty to what they deem is best for social justice as justification for their actions. You have persons who describe themselves as scientists, yet they deny the validity of Truth Seeking using the scientific method while espousing the adoption of Post-Modern Science as the only genuine science for now and the future.

In each case their actions and/or words are the opposite of what the nomenclature and statements they rely upon to represent who they are and what they do. In other words, when you look closely at their deeds and words, you can see they do not match their promises or realities. They constitute oxymorons.

You are either a non-scientist or have been indoctrinated. If you keep that up, in ten years time you’ll be extolling the virtues of eugenics, mass population culling, etc. arrived at by the same methodology. And others will have used you as a useful idiot

No worries on that front Aligner, I’m fully in command of myself and my perceptions, and I’m nobody’s fool. The warmists try to consolidate their position with false positivism. They claim that they can discount other explanations for climate warming, and by a process of elimination pinpoint the cause.

Who do they think they are? Sherlock bloody Holmes? Someone needs to tell them that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote fiction

The sceptic position is the correct one. We have no fully consistent explanation for the variation in climate. Natural variation is the default position. All other hypotheses, GCR’s, solar, geomagnetic are in play in the same way co2 is. None of them carries certainty about the extent of their effect.

Personally, I’m working on a planetary-solar theory, but as I said in my post, there is no access to objective truth about climate variation at this point. The sooner everyone gets their heads around that the better.

You are either a non-scientist or have been indoctrinated. If you keep that up, in ten years time you’ll be extolling the virtues of eugenics, mass population culling, etc. arrived at by the same methodology. And others will have used you as a useful idiot

No worries on that front Aligner, I’m fully in command of myself and my perceptions, and I’m nobody’s fool. The warmists try to consolidate their position with false positivism. They claim that they can discount other explanations for climate warming, and by a process of elimination pinpoint the cause.

Who do they think they are? Sherlock bloody Holmes? Someone needs to tell them that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote fiction

The sceptic position is the correct one. We have no fully consistent explanation for the variation in climate. Natural variation is the default position. All other hypotheses, GCR’s, solar, geomagnetic are in play in the same way co2 is. None of them carries certainty about the extent of their effect.

I’m working on a planetary-solar theory, but as I said in my post, there is no access to objective truth about climate variation at this point, although there are some very bright people with some good clue. The sooner everyone gets their heads around that the better.

You all probably saw this email already, but this fellow was describing how he found a solar cycle-temp relationship:

The transform result shows a sharp spike at the 11 year point (I wonder
what is significant about 11 years?). The second part of the instructions
now acts upon this observed spike (the Cos 11 bit), to extract it’s
waveform from the rest of the noise. The result is shown as a waveform
in attachment 3, the waves having an 11-year period, with the long-term
Sydney warming easily evident.

Attachment 4 shows the original Sydney data overlaid against the 11-year
periodicity.

It would appear that the solar cycle does indeed affect temperature.

(I tried the same run on the CRU global temperature set. Even though CRU
must be highly smoothed by the time all the averages are worked out, the
11-year pulse is still there, albeit about half the size of Sydneys).

Apologies for grabbing the wrong end of a hockey stick. Discussion about PNS and those who seek to legitimise it in the context of AGW got the better of me. Red noise overload I’m afraid, it’s broken again :-)

If you’ve not established urgency, reached some ethical impasse, etc. by normal science in the first place, surely you ought not to dabble about in the abstruse philosophising of PNS, period! Where is the established urgency, etc. the cart seems to be before the horse?

If you’re incapable of deep introspection and detachment from your own conditioning and prejudices, should you not place PNS off limits to yourself? Hulme uses terms like “political preferences” in his 2007 Guardian article. Whose preferences is he referring to? Is the very appearance of this disingenuous putdown in a convenient part of MSM indicative of such inward consideration, just a “chink of weakness” or the complete antithesis?

If only the billions of dollars wasted on post-normal Hansel and Gretel from the Brothers Grimm (not to mention post-venusian fortran, equally grim) had been used to ramp up fundamental research. We’d be much further down the track of solid rather than “authoritarian and exclusive” knowledge production. Nice choice of words though, very Freudian.

I guess it’ll all come out in the wash eventually. Good luck with your theory, tallbloke. No theories here, just hobby observation of Bz spikes and marked Np/Vsw movements with half an eye on Dr S’s MF/F10.7 plots. Interested only in what turns up and when during this exceptional cycle we’re all privileged to witness. Mind you, if L & P’s hypothesis continues to grow legs I may regret describing it like that :-)

I was impressed with Dr. Lindzen’s quotes from “Why We Disagree About Climate Change”:

“The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but what climate change can do for us.”

“Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.”

“We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects.”

“These myths transcend the scientific categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’.”

I am struck by the last quote. It seems to me Hulme has a distorted view of science, as scientists practice it. I remember a discussion I and an Australian high school teacher were having with Dr. Alan Kay about post-modernism. Kay said:

Post-modernism is a mis-reaction of non-scientists (who still try to think) to science, and part of their confusion is that their (essentially Medieval scholastic) tradition of true-false-not logic quite misses that science is a thousand versions of “false” (some of them useful and close), but no version of “truth”. They wrongly think that not-true is “just false”, and miss how neat and important “some falses” are.

I haven’t read the book, but after seeing several quotes from it I’m getting the impression that Hulme is an affirmative post-modernist. The post-modernist belief is there is no such thing as objective truth, and therefor nothing can be defined objectively. Come to think of it, scientists would agree with that aspect. Where post-modernism and science diverge is PM says that all “truths” are just narratives, and all are equally valid. A post-modernist would therefor believe that scientists are just fooling themselves by thinking they’re finding or seeing “a better version of reality”.

There’s another version of PM called “affirmative post-modernism”. It agrees that there is no absolute truth, and that all “truths” are just competing narratives, but it espouses the idea that there are some narratives that are better than others, and which should therefor be espoused above all the other narratives. It introduces values into the mix, and the preferred values are those which “promote social justice”. What’s interesting about this is affirmative PM acknowledges that there are some people who do not understand this, but just understand “truth” (ie. what they are told is true), and that there are others (presumably elites who will tell the masses what is “true”) who understand the “truth” of competing narratives, and know how to instill the appropriate beliefs and values in the masses, and how to deploy narratives to the people that will bring about “appropriate” actions. It is inherently elitist.

Hulme is somewhat right when he says that “scientists would not be able to answer how much CO2 is too much,” because that is a value judgment. But I would expect this is something that would be handled by politicians and the democratic process. What’s needed for this process to function well is information that has come about from a well-reasoned process, which is trusted, not distortions designed to promote a preferred outcome. But then, this is where PMs would disagree.

Hulme is somewhat right when he says that “scientists would not be able to answer how much CO2 is too much,” because that is a value judgment.

I should add that scientists could talk about how much is “too much” in one sense: The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere that would be dangerous to human and animal health (ie. what would make them lethargic, impede mental function, or suffocate), which is MUCH higher than what we have now.